Thursday 23 July 2015

Generic list post: 20 classic rap songs which were heavily ghostwritten

Don't worry if they wrote the rhymes, they made these tracks that snapped necks.

The Sugar Hill Gang - Rapper's Delight (1979)
Beastie Boys - Slow And Low (1986)
Baby ft. The Clipse - What Happened To That Boy? (2003)
Biz Markie - Vapors (1988)
Roxanne Shante - Have A Nice Day (1987)
Eazy-E - Boyz-N-The Hood (1987)
Dr. Dre - Let Me Ride (1992)
Kreayshawn - Gucci Gucci (2011)
Busy Bee - Making Cash Money (1982)
Melle Mel & Duke Bootee - Message II (Survival) (1983)
KanYe West - Can't Tell Me Nothing (2007)
Shaquille O'Neal - I'm Outstanding (1993)
Lil' Cease - Crush On You (1996)
Lil' Kim ft. Notorious B.I.G - Drugs (1996)
Puffy ft. Bad Boy & Lil' Kim - It's All About The Benjamins (1997)
Jim Jones - We Fly High (2006)
Freeky Zekey ft. Max B & Sen City - Henny (2007)
Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot (2004)
Pharrell - Raspy Shit (2006)
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy (2014)

22 comments:

L.A said...

"Gettin' Jiggy With It" too.

DN said...

Wait...what's ghostwritten on "Message 2 (Survival)"?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

They're Spoonie Gee's lyrics from Spoonin' Rap which Melle Mel paid to use.

DN said...

Oh okay, I never realised that before.

The CritIQ said...

What about examples of telescopic ghostwriting? For instance, Def Jef ghostwrote for Young MC who in turn ghostwrote for Tone Loc.

Yo Yo's debut album was pretty much all ghostwritten by Ice Cube and/or Del. Likewise, having provided all the raw material (stories/ideas) for Cube's first two albums, Da Lench Mob's debut album was pretty much a Cube album.

Lauryn Hill, ODB, Bushwick Bill, Eazy-E are all classic examples of stars who couldn't write their own names let alone song lyrics.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Great, these comments are gonna end up being besieged by angry Lauren Hill stans at some point in the furure.

I only found that out about ODB recently. Apparently he wrote Shimmy Shimmy Ya though.

hotbox said...

Willie D wrote Choice's 1st album including the song where she disses Willie D

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Never forget Akinyele ghostwrote Heather Hunter's rap album.

Kurious Georginio Wijnaldum said...

Telescopic ghostwriting? Interesting concept! How would you call Dre "ghostwriting" Kanye West's entire executive summary or whatever you want to call it then? Herding an army of producers in the studio to the point they don't even know who did what: check. Likewise for actual word writing (Myka 9 contributed to early NWA as well methinks): also check... Since you can blatantly recognise Ab Liva's writing behind Send it up on Yeezus does it mean he's not that good a ghostwriter?

The CritIQ said...

Nas and Common have ghostwritten for Will Smith. Guru ghostwrote for The Cookie Crew and Nefertiti. Grand Puba wrote for Pete Rock. The reference tracks for Blade's entire discography were created by Darcus Howe's flatulence.

Anonymous said...

Will Smith "Summertime" (Rakim)

Anonymous said...

Can't tell me nothing ?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

That's not actually true about Summertime - Will just did an Oscar-worthy job of biting Rakim's flow from What's On Your Mind.

Forgot about Pubes writing for Pete. The Creator is a bit of a glaring omission here.

The CritIQ said...

@ Kurious Georginio Wijnaldum: It's not so much ghost-production as franchising. e.g. A lot of supposed Rza beats are by "The Wu Elements" (Mathematics, 4th Disciple, Tru Master et al).

Mikah 9 ghostwrote for a pre Deathrow RBX who in turn ghostwrote for Dre.


I heard Stig of the Dump wrote Robbie Williams's "Rude Box."

Ray Garraty said...

What? Bushwick Bill never wrote his lyrics? I can't believe it.

Kurious Georginio Wijnaldum said...

@ The CritIQ: I always took Wu Tang in house producers to be fairly credited and that their respective deviation from the Rza template were more or less recognisable (I'd say that Heaterz, Killin Fields and Fish are typical True Master beats for instance though not sure about the other two).

Re: Puba writing for Pete Rock: the intro bit of "For Pete Sake"

Anonymous said...

ODB wrote "Brooklyn Zoo." He may have written "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" too, but he did write "Brooklyn Zoo" for sure. Otherwise it gets kinda sketchy from there. GZA and RZA did a lot of the rhyme writing on the debut. You can most clearly hear it on "Damage" (GZA all the way) and "Cuttin' Headz" (RZA all the way).

The Wu-Tang dudes give each other isolated lines all the time though. Meth gave Ghost half of his verse on "Cherchez Le Ghost." And Rae wrote all of "Heaven and Hell." (And Superb - I'm kidding, Superb didn't write shit for Ghost. But you all knew that.)

Scarface and Willie D wrote all of Bill's verses.

If I'm not wrong, some members of the Screwed Up Click did a touch of ghostwriting for Big Moe here and there.

Havoc used to write verses for Prodigy waaaaay early on in Mobb Deep's history, like in the "Juvenile Hell" days, but then Prodigy stepped way up and became Houdini P and that didn't need to happen anymore. I think Prodigy then wrote a few verses for Hav later on, hah.

I've heard rumors that A$AP Candace Fergen gets his shit written by Rocky, but I give so little of a fuck about those cornballs that it'd be hard for me to care either way.

Anonymous said...

You can add Masta Ace to Will Smith's list of ghostwriters, although sometimes their names are right there in the credits. Nas, Common and Ace are all credited on that Will Smith album.

Speaking of people who give proper credit, it's funny now to recall how no-one believed it was Ye was writing his own rhymes when he first got on the mic, and now nobody thinks he makes his own beats.

Also, while this ain't a story I've heard a whole lot, Redman supposedly ghostwrote extensively for EPMD at some point prior to his official debut on wax.

Rob Marsh said...

Shante's 'Big Mama' is better than 'Have A Nice Day' to my ears. Kane wrote some stuff for Shan as well, not sure which songs though.

Rob Marsh said...

Kane told me he write stuff for Shan, but didn't specify.

Rob Marsh said...

See also: Shan wrote 'Take Your Radio' for MC Boob.

d said...

I want some kinda blog for ghostwriting gossip, I love this shit.

re: ODB, this sound familiar?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dy2D8vVxRE

Shantes an interesting one cos she can freestyle p well off the head but had a few ppl write for her, theres a few ppl like that. Ive a suspicion ppl who can do that dont have as fragile egos n are cooler bout ghostwriting.

eg Snoop who Im p sure has multiple songs off the dome (Shiznit for 1) hes that good at it, was the main writer in one of the first big ghostwriting exposes w Dre n yearrrrs before anyone else would - openly talked bout Eastsidaz, DOC, Problem writing for him

Ive been listening to Superb lately n I still cant tell if theres anything to it but Superbs a p good rapper lads